I. Field
The present invention relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for performing signal acquisition in a wireless communication system.
II. Background
In a communication system, a base station processes (e.g., encodes and symbol maps) data to obtain modulation symbols, and further processes the modulation symbols to generate a modulated signal. The base station then transmits the modulated signal via a communication channel. The system may use a transmission scheme whereby data is transmitted in frames, with each frame having a particular time duration. Different types of data (e.g., traffic/packet data, overhead/control data, pilot, and so on) may be sent in different parts of each frame.
A wireless terminal in the system may not know which base stations, if any, near its vicinity are transmitting. Furthermore, the terminal may not know the start of each frame for a given base station, the time at which each frame is transmitted by the base station, or the propagation delay introduced by the communication channel. The terminal performs signal acquisition to detect for transmissions from base stations in the system and to synchronize to the timing and frequency of each detected base stations of interest. Via the signal acquisition process, the terminal can ascertain the timing of each detected base station and can properly perform the complementary demodulation for that base station.
The base stations typically expend system resources to support signal acquisition, and the terminals also consume resources to perform acquisition. Since signal acquisition is overhead needed for data transmission, it is desirable to minimize the amount of resources used by both the base stations and terminals for acquisition.
There is therefore a need in the art for techniques to efficiently perform signal acquisition in a wireless communication system.